The day Gervasio Deferr touched heaven before falling into hell

BarcelonaTwenty-five years ago, Gervasio Deferr (Premià de Mar, 1980) won a gold medal in the vault at the Sydney Olympic Games, a feat that seemed like science fiction. No Spanish gymnast had ever managed to displace Russians, Japanese, Americans, or Chinese from the top of the podium. But on September 25th, twenty-five years ago, Deferr reached the pinnacle of success with that gold medal in Sydney's Superdome. Few people imagined then what would happen next. Like Icarus, he tried to fly and burned his wings, falling into a hell of injuries, drugs, and accusations.

Gervasio Deferr arrived at the 2000 Games in top form, but it was hard to imagine that he would win a gold medal that even Jesús Carballo from Madrid hadn't achieved in 1996 when he was the favorite. State gymnastics seemed cursed ever since that plane crash in which Catalan gymnast Joaquim Blume lost his life when he appeared poised to win gold on the rings. Deferr was fighting against all odds. No problem, because he was a fighter, the son of an Argentinian couple who had fled the military dictatorship. "My parents were tired of me because I was climbing everywhere. They signed me up for gymnastics to see if I'd tire of it, and the opposite happened," Deferr himself explained to ARA. Coached by Alfredo Hueto, Gervasio began to stand out in the Catalan championships in floor exercises and vault. He was a force of nature who revolutionized Spanish and European gymnastics with his physique and daring style. He wanted to be like the Russian Alexei Nemov, and in 1999, at the World Championships in Tianjin, China, he found himself winning silver in the floor exercise, behind... Nemov. "I no longer wanted to be like him; now I wanted to beat him," he would explain. The next challenge was the Olympics. "I arrived in Sydney very young; I'd been training for years. I'd dropped out of school, prioritizing training, and I never went back. I arrived in top form, believing I could win everything," he recalls. The Spanish delegation was certain Deferr would win a medal in the floor exercise. But in the qualifying round, he jumped with too much force and, seeing he would land outside the permitted area, he adjusted his routine mid-air. The penalty eliminated him from the final. It was a tough blow, but it "gave him energy for the vault." Deferr executed three very difficult vaults and surprised everyone by taking the gold medal to the final. Nobody expected it. "I was very reckless. I had snuck out of the Olympic Village to go partying, and when I jumped through a hole in the fence, I injured myself, a wound I hid from the coaches," he would later admit.

Deferr competed and lived on the edge. And he started going out too much. He was young, strong, attractive, and famous. And he lost his way. The consequence was injuries and a positive test for cannabis. "I broke my shoulders, my back all over... from 2000 to 2004 it was hell. I started training a few months before the Athens Games, nobody believed I would achieve anything. I won the same gold and came fourth in the land exercise final," recalled a man who, the night before winning the gold, said, "I don't remember anything from that night. I was furious about not winning gold in the land exercise." And yet, he won gold a few hours later. In 2008, he added another medal, silver in the land exercise, during a time when he was fighting to keep his demons at bay. "I spent two years debating whether or not to go to the 2012 London Olympics. When I finally accepted that I wouldn't go, I had six months to think about what I would do with my life before officially announcing my retirement. I had been doing the same thing for 25 years and I didn't know what to do afterward," he recalls. He fell into a darker pit than before. "My mind wouldn't stop racing. So I screwed up all sorts of things to avoid thinking. Keep in mind that I came from a different world. I hadn't even had a beer socially at seventeen on a terrace with chips and olives. At seventeen, I was training like crazy. So when I hit rock bottom, I just left. Nobody. I hurt myself. People need to understand that you have to ask for help," he told ARA a few years ago. "I tried to do things, find my place. I would accompany Ray Zapata to training sessions at the High-Performance Center or participate in the Ona FM broadcasts of Real Madrid matches, like in meringue "I'm Catalan. But I couldn't. I had to stop. I knew I wasn't working well," he admits.

Deferr would begin to see the light thanks to people like the president of the Spanish Olympic Committee, Alejandro Blanco. "I came to the La Mina gymnastics club, which a few of us had opened in 2010 to help young people in the neighborhood. But since things weren't going well, I had problems with other coaches. And I had to be honest and tell the parents of the students that I had a problem. That I was leaving because I needed help. Everyone cried that day. I asked Alejandro Blanco for help and spent ten months at the center so I could leave a different person. I had the right to mature, later than others," he would say. Deferr was able to return to the La Mina gymnastics club to coach young gymnasts. It seemed the worst was over. In 2024, he even recorded The Great LeapA series based on the book he wrote with journalist Roger Pascual, detailing his struggles, was released. It was then that a woman filed a complaint against Deferr, alleging that he had raped her when he was a coach at the CAR (High-Performance Center) in Sant Cugat, and she was a minor gymnast. The former Olympic champion denies the allegations.